Thursday, April 30, 2009
Airport security loophole?
Evidently, you can be an unaccompanied minor and get through TSA security without ID.
A 13 year-old boy, said to be autistic, went on a trip:
"Kenton Weaver took his father's car Tuesday, drove 30 miles to the Fort Lauderdale airport and caught a flight to San Jose near where his mother lives...It makes sense that accompanied minors might not need ID, but I wonder about the rule regarding unaccompanied minors.
"He used one of his father's credit cards to buy the ticket, but had no ID on him. Airport and transportation officials say anyone under 18 only needs a boarding pass to get on a plane."
It's interesting that Kenton's autism attracts him to airplanes, as contrasted with the fictional autistic Raymond character in the movie "Rain Man," who famously refuses to board a flight (language warning - NSFW).
4 Comments:
By 
nobrainer, at
Thu Apr 30, 02:31:00 PM:
You can be an adult and make it through security without ID, but you're subject to additional search.
Google around for SSSS.
I learned about this by losing my ID, but apparently some people fly without ID as sport; while others have learned that at certain airports being SSSS gets you sent to the quicker first class security line (I think I read about the last part there in the LA Times).
By nobrainer, at
Thu Apr 30, 02:36:00 PM:
Whoops. Not the LA times.
It was from SF Gate
By 
Automatic_Wing , at
Thu Apr 30, 03:07:00 PM:
My son is autistic - a lot more severe than this kid's - and he's absolutely obsessed with commercial aviation. He would fly every day if he could. Instead, he's on Microsoft Flight Simulator all the time flying his enormous collection of add-on jets.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri May 01, 06:51:00 AM:
The thing that annoyed me about this scene at the time is that my client, Midway Airlines, not only had never crashed but it flew to Los Angeles from wherever these guys were (I think it was Chicago, actually). Midway had never crashed! How did Ray not know that? 'Course, it would have messed up the movie if they could have just hopped on a Midway flight.
